


XXIII - Letter to a Courtier

by apotropaicsymbol



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Epistolary, Gen, Original female character POV, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21881605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apotropaicsymbol/pseuds/apotropaicsymbol
Summary: Composed during the mid-to-late First Schismatic period, this letter from a human translator to a member of the courtier caste is one of the few descriptions of the Sorceress derived from eyewitness testimony.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1
Collections: Undiscovered gems





	XXIII - Letter to a Courtier

Dear Kifen,

I hope everything is going well for you. I think of you often and continually pray for your recovery. I have big news for you, buddy. Ready?

Yesterday we found Hiders.

Or, rather, they found us; they had come to us, uncloaked themselves.

I was taking a shower when a servant ran into my compartment and said the captain needed me. “Why?” She looked scared. “Something came up.” “Tzn, just tell me.” She wouldn't, so I threw my pajamas back on. As soon as I was done, she grabbed me and full-out ran for the bridge. I thought something awful must have happened – some horrific malfunction with the ship – and then I saw the screen.

Ashen or pallid, hair so dirty it literally looked wet, clothes that looked old and thin. Nobody's hair was combed. Thin and—not exhausted, but with an air of the forgotten about them. Like they had forgotten to take care of themselves. Like they had forgotten how to be human. Like somebody had locked them away in a tiny metal box spinning through space for the last four hundred years. And then forgot all about them.

About two hundred of them, all crowded into the bridge. An entire mini-society. It was kind of horrific to see the kids – is this the only world they knew? One woman at the front, speaking for them. Middle-aged. Tawny brown skin; full, arched eyebrows; high cheekbones and a vicious scar slicing from right ear to lip. She was wearing a threadbare denim jacket and pale green skinny jeans that looked very, very worn. She started talking as soon as I came into the frame.

“Well met,” she said smoothly. “It is always a pleasure to meet another scion of Earth. They call me the Sorceress. I, and my people, have a request to make of you.” I was honestly kind of flabbergasted to see how self-assured she was. This chick looked like she had crawled out of a _closet_. Her ship was a fricking _closet_. The kids around her clustered like _dust bunnies_. I, on the other hand, looked like a completely different flavor of mess. I know this will surprise you, but due to my being dragged out untimely from my shower, I was a dripping mess. I still had suds in my hair. I became horribly self-conscious that a nipple was sticking through my wet shirt. (And of course I couldn't _check_.) Water was _coming off of me_. And “the Sorceress” (OK, baby) was acting like she had just strolled into my palace. (Or, even worse, like I had strolled into hers.) 

I just – is this why Hiders Hide? Because they Cannot Fucking Deal With The Real World?

Mean of me, I know. She was probably under a lot of stress. 

“I will relay your message to the captain,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I could read the computer display – no weapons detected. As I thought; an oversized, inhabitable tin can. 

After living so long among nonhumans you become, if anything, hyper-attuned to the body language of other humans. All the little tics you never see anymore, but once you see them it's like you're reliving every time you've seen them before. Like when you go back to Harbeck and hear human speech again: every curve of the lips, every vibration in the throat. You feel it in your own, now that you're surrounded by mirrors. 

So it was not “The Sorceress”'s fault when I noticed how she squared her shoulders, very slightly, took a deeper breath, very slightly. Met my eyes with an air of command, and said, “Should it please this vessel's captain, we ask two hundred shoe-lengths of copper wire.”

Did you know that their concept of a “shoe-length” is not the same as a standard foot? Me neither! Surprise!

Well, as it turned out we couldn't give it to them even if we wanted to: we don't have the tech needed to manufacture it at the teeny-weeny diameter they wanted. (The stuff we make ourselves is thicker.) We'd have to stop somewhere, commission it, and then give it back to them. 

The Captain made me ask what they would give us in return. The Sorceress said a bunch of stuff about how much the Empire owed mankind for all we had given them, and won't your poor hearts be moved to charity? The Captain, who as far as I can tell, has never had a heart and wouldn't know what to do with it if she did, said that “human vassals” were “adequately compensated,” and implied, without actually stating, that she was under no obligation to help non-Imperial aliens. Neither of which is untrue! But the way she said it was so cold and transactional, even I was like, God, fuck her. And there I was, stuck in the middle, translating. God it was so awkward. Some of the Sorceress's people were giving me pitying or unimpressed looks. Don't blame the messenger, people. All I want to do is rinse my hair...!

I knoooooooow everyone's gonna go ape when they hear about this, and I don't think Captain Underpants wanted to throw away the glory of  _ meeting Hiders!!! And possibly taxing them!!!  _ So after giving these poor fuckers a requisite hard time, she said that she would contact the relevant authorities and get them their wire if they signed a document of non-aggression. “I don't think they're going to want to come aboard,” I whispered to her. “We'll send a treaty-board.” Do you know what that is? (I'm assuming you do, you nice little bureaucrat.) Well, I didn't know, and I was like :O :O :O, or maybe :OOO when I saw that fancy purple tablet being printed out of our command center. Cool stuff.

So because we don't have anything else as high-priority, we're gonna make a pit stop at the nearest outpost and get that for them. And maybe in a generation or two some of them will join up.

As I lay in bed I couldn't stop thinking about those kids, though. The hollow quality of their gaze. I called them  _ dust bunnies _ – the way they sort of huddled together on the edges of the frame. A lot of them were wrapped in these lint-looking gray blankets.

And when they put their cloak back on, they were gone completely. No instrument could find them.

In other news, my new bed is really comfy. Whenever Captain Awful pisses me off, I just think of the lovely bed she got me, and I somehow find a way to forgive her. :) 

Ava Andree

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


End file.
